Ashes and puzzling pieces
by lostmarble
Summary: Moments, anecdotes, thoughts that might have happened. Connected or separate, they can be mixed and matched like any good jigsaw puzzle.
1. Ashes

_Genre: Tragedy/Drama_

_Word count: 118_

_Characters: Sango and Kohaku_

_Summary: Short-short. Semi poetic--Sango and Kohaku. Just read._

Her mind implodes, flashes of sharp metal and chain, stirring up the ashes if her regrets. She can taste charcoal on her tongue; it grits in her teeth as she chews it over, flavorless, but still somehow bitter.

She should have…could have…

Knows that she couldn't.

Ashes to ashes (if only it were so simple), ashes, ashes everywhere.

Will she fall down again?

Will he?

When?

As long as there is a glint of hope between the places where angel's wings should now, by all rights, lie, she knows the answer.

She cannot return him to the ashes (or can she?), and the dust has yet to settle on the ruins of her grief.


	2. Clouded reflections

_Genre: Remembrance__/Romance  
Word count: 921  
__Characters: it's better if you read and find out  
__Summary: Waiting beneath the clouds, finding some firsts. _

She looks into the sky, watching. Waiting.

Not for a resurrected horror this time. No scorching heat, magick-seeming swords like lightning, no poison gas to choke breath and life, no living half-machines.

No.

This time, she waits calmly, for something that she cannot stop, cannot defeat, even should she desire to do so. Which she never would.

She remembers similar scenes from a long-ago childhood--she is only seventeen, she reflects; when did she grow old? —when family and jewels and hearts were whole, and the only magic she knew was the small, everyday sort: blooming flowers raised from seeds, the way her father could weave those same delicate blooms into a lacy crown for his fairy princess. Come spring, she would dance in the sun, bare feet skipping and tripping along to the bubbling tune of her parents' delighted laughter from their place in the shade of the old Goshinboku.

And there would be times like the one she was presently (feebly) attempting to recreate. Waiting in the snow with baited breath and wide, shining eyes, huddling under an old blanket at the roots of the same old tree--now bare of its leaves—between her parents, nestling into their protective warmth. Small hands clutching a big, hot mug of cocoa, reveling in the heat it gave off. Big fluffy marshmallows just starting to melt into the thick elixir, the perfect temperature when she raised it to her lips. (With each swallow she could feel it travel down her throat, warming her as it went.)

Brought back to the present, she sighs.

She sits at the roots of the old tree, which is just as she remembers it, and she is huddled under a blanket with a hot mug in her (now larger, and more callused) hands. But she is alone under the blanket—her mother and brother are out of town, and her grandfather is at bingo night. Her father? Colder than she, five years in his grave. The mug holds tea, not cocoa—they ran out last week, and no one has yet bought more.

Still.

She stares up at the dark cloudy sky once more, watching.

Waiting.

It's starting to get dark, and she won't be able to wait outside much longer. She'd so wanted to see it too.

She hears a rustle from the branches overhead. Thinking _isn't it a little late in the year for squirrels? _

Doesn't spare it a second thought.

Suddenly, something does fall form the sky.

Or rather, the tree.

Red, silver hair, golden eyes and…ears.

"Inu…yasha?" she questions, confused.

"In the flesh," he replies.

She opens her mouth, closes it again, changes her mind and speaks: "Why are you here?" she elaborates. "I told you I just wanted a day at home."

"Yeah...well…"

She says nothing, just raises one eyebrow and waits for him to continue.

"I…uh…" he falters, searching for words, looking at her pleadingly. His ears twitch like independent, living things.

She knows what he wants; she's just not going to acquiesce. Instead, she simply raises the other eyebrow. Curious.

"I…guh…wanted…" He turns red and stumbles again, his tongue catching on the words.

She lets her face take on an amused expression.

"_Dammit, woman!" _He shouts the words, angry (at who?) and embarrassed. "_I thought you might want company or something!" _

_Or something_. The thought comes unbidden.

Sort of.

Save that thought for a rainy day.

She grins and pats the blanket. "Plenty of room under here."

He turns red (_more_ red) and hesitantly slips under the blanket, as far away from her as possible, stuffing his arms defiantly into his sleeves, watching her warily. She rolls her eyes and grins. The grin suddenly becomes a smirk and he looks momentarily frightened, ears swiveling forward, alert.

Momentarily, because before he can react, she has set down her tea and yanked his arm _hard_, the momentum sending him crashing into her. He is shocked--tense, immobile for long moments. Then, seeming to make a decision, resolutely staring at the gray sky, he tentatively moves his arm to circle her waist. She doesn't notice at first, he is moving slowly, carefully. But all of a sudden, when she leans down to reclaim her mug of tea—now tepid—she sees the clawed fingers resting tentatively on her side. She smiles slightly and covers his fingers with her own. For the first time, when he looks down, golden eyes wide, gazes meet. Her smile is slowly reflected on his lips, and she lays her head on his shoulder.

They sit, unspeaking, unmoving, but the silence warms them more than the old blanket can. Then, seeming to remember something, he shrugs his shoulder slightly, startling her out of her reverie.

"Kagome?" Quietly, softly almost.

Brown eyes stop searching the darkening skies for a moment to glance at him before resuming their investigation. "Hmmm?"

"Why are you out here, anyway?"

She shakes her head. "Just wait."

He does so, obediently.

Time passes. The clouds darken a little more, still she continues her scrutiny.

Then, suddenly, her face breaks into a slow smile, like the sun rising. He has been watching her rather than the heavens, and sees.

"What?"

"See it?"

"No, what?"

She takes his hand, aligns her index finger with his, and points. "There."

A single white speck, high up above their heads. He sees it, and his smile again matches hers. "The first snow of winter."

She's still grinning, but now at him.

Thinking _maybe…not so disappointing after all. _


	3. Massage

_Genre: Poetry (Free Form)_

_Word count: 81_

_Characters: Kagome and Inuyasha_

_Summary: Kagome reflects on giving Inuyasha a massage...or is it?_

I love the feeling of my fingers dancing up and down your spine  
Dancing, weaving  
Braiding and unbraiding, hard and soft,

I love that you are like putty in my hands…  
Dough really  
As I knead and knead--longer than necessary, but you'll never say stop

I love the moments in which time loosens  
Tense, relase  
Even as the power under your skin does the same

But what I really love is the little noises you make  
Whimpers, moans  
Surpressed groans let me know that you love this more than me.

Illicit thrill


	4. Worn out

_Genre: Poetry (Free Form)_

_Word count: 139_

_Characters: Miroku and Sango_

_Summary: Eros requires contact. _

Sometimes when I  
Refrain from touching you  
Just long enough

You speak--something  
Of the comfort you draw  
When you meet another kindred soul

I? Comfort?  
How shall I  
When you keep me

At arm's length  
Cannot touch you  
Or kiss away

Old hurts  
I see them in your eyes  
Shine, shine

Then shatter  
Like a mirror, so perhaps  
I was seeing myself

Reflected back  
Darkly all along  
Dark like the sky

Under which you told me  
Secrets, whispered in my ear  
Hiss softly, only I hear

But did you really  
Want me to listen  
Or just to pour out

The liquid lead weighing down  
Your heart,  
So that with out it, you

You could rise  
Float away, leaving  
Me to burn my holy hands with your heavy burden.


	5. The General

_Genre: Emotive/Tragedy/Angst/Songfic  
Word count: 514  
Characters: Sesshomaru  
Summary: Life can make us numb. But, sometimes, is it worse if it_ doesn't?.

Disclaimer--the song is not mine, but rather Dispatch's excellent "The General." Bittersweet--check it out (delete the speces) www. halo-clan. com/Music/Used/Dispatch20-20Dispatch20-20The20General. mp3, or email me and i'll send it mp3 format.

* * *

_I have seen the others  
__And I have discovered  
T__hat this fight is not worth fighting. _

_No._

_And I've seen their mothers  
__And I will no others  
__To follow me where I'm going…_

So, I am cold.

Not _physically_. No. But all else about me is cold—so say those that survive their first meeting with me.

I have no desire correct their perceptions. Why should I wish to reverse an image that took decades to complete?

Listen.

I had a family once, a home that was more than a house.

A house, be it as large as my palace, can never be as rich nor as coveted as the smallest home where love flows like a waterfall, cleansing its inhabitants of all impurities.

Yes, I had that once.

Once, I was pure.

No more. With the shattering of the home came the shattering of my innocence. My father was not the omnipotent god that I had thought him to be.

He could not even keep my mother with us.

I remember the day—it burns still in my memory, a hot coal that fuels me: my strength, my violence. My anger.

She had been in the South, acting as peaceable ambassador to the Southern lands while my father watched over the troops, holding the truce until her return. It was a true mark of trust and good will that a Lord such as my father would send his own mate to the accords.

That trust was not reciprocated.

On en route to the palace of the Southern lord, she was waylaid by assassins, hired by advisers to the king who believed that they were attacking my father. Instead they found a much better prize: a way to inflict lasting hurt on him.

My father told me that her body was never found, but I found out otherwise.

They had raped my mother and beat her, stripping her and cutting off her tail, gouging out her eyes before finally one of them took "mercy" and cut off her head as well.

The soldier that told me was later executed.

And frost began to obscure the cracks forming in my soul.

Three years later, a blink in the like of youkai such as we, he married a human wench.

Izayoi.

My father and I never spoke again, but I believe that he hoped for reconciliation, even to the very end: he did not disinherit me, and left me the Tesseiga, in hopes that I would learn mercy and forgiveness to temper my desire for vengeance.

In vain.

So perhaps I have anger in my soul, and am repressing it, or some nonsense.

Or perhaps the surge of adrenaline that courses through my veins during a fight is addictive.

But I think not.

I fight so that, at least for a while, I can be exactly what the one under my claws sees me as.

Unfeeling.

Perhaps this fight is not worth fighting--

But it's all that I have left.

…_You are young and you must be living--  
__Go now, you are forgiven._


	6. Coins and Coffee

_Genre: Emotive/Introspective/Songfic  
Word count: 1,083  
Characters: Kagome, guess who  
Summary: Time passes. While it doesn't heal old wounds, it helps us learn tolive with the scars. _

AN: The song is "Two Coins"

_I stick loneliness, your lips  
and the two coins of your eyes  
Into my pockets_

She's back home. (Has been for two years now, since she finished high school. That summer, they found the last of what they had been looking for, defeated the last enemy, and she took a "break" at home, but never came back.)

She sees him across the street. It's his eyes that catch her eye and her breath. He lacks his markings and his long hair is in a braid of snow down his back, not left free, but his eyes…she would know them anywhere. He sees her seeing him, and the connection is made. His eyes and his brother's are like two sides of the same coin, held on an open palm too long in the winter air: one cold, but full of the knowledge of the equally cold world, one warm but completely ignorant of its surroundings. Two years have taught her that sometimes, the cold can wake you up, even if it is warmth that comforts you.

She expected to be awake, but, as though she has just drunk three shots of espresso, a little warm as well. She doesn't know why--but she is comforted.

_Well the train skates into  
Port Henry late Sunday  
Sometimes when I'm riding high  
Feeling fine you know there's something  
Troubling my mind_

Taking the train back to school from home three months later, staring out the window, she wonders what might have been had she not wished Inuyasha and Kikyo to forget her. A pure wish, so the one that granted it was no more. The next morning, she left, and nobody saw her look back.

_So I reach into my pocket for some  
Small change  
I reach into my pocket for some  
Small change_

She thinks of his eyes again, and how they seemed to have softened a little. Or is their brilliant gold just a little tarnished? Years and years, she can only imagine what the friction wrought by their passing might do, even to a youkai as hard as he had seemed so long ago. Perhaps he had learned that if he became a bit more flexible, he would be harder to break.

_I want bones like iron blood like mercury  
so I can tell you when I'm rising  
and when I'm sinking in_

She wishes that she were strong, made of steel. Nothing breakable.

But then, she supposes that someone would just melt her down, anyway.

Wants to feel it in her bones, in her veins when the winds of chance are changing, about to leave her cold. She would prepare next time; take back the piece of her heart that she so willingly gave. But realizes that she couldn't wouldn't if she could. It's not hers anymore, anyway.

_so I reach into my pocket for some  
small change  
I reach into my pocket for some  
small change_

_we're gonna take it to the people_

A week or so later, riding to class on the train. She thinks of all the faces that she never saw again, realizes that she has trouble remembering them in detail. She remembers the calming voice of the monk, speaking wisdom even as his hand hound its way to her backside, but can't remember any of his words. A flash of purple for Miroku's eyes, but what color were Sango's? She can remember the color of the demon slayer's uniform (black with pink pads), but not the way her voice sounded when she laughed. Can't remember Inuyasha's face when he saw her after she had been gone for a long while, though his golden eyes still burn holes through her if she thinks about them too long. She remembers everything about Shippo well but knows that, should he still be alive, she would not recognize the man that he had become. It makes her throat ache with loneliness to realize that it has been so long, and her heart ache when she realizes that she doesn't really mind after all, having a hole there.

_hey let's drink from the cup  
share some luck  
go ahead and laugh cause it don't  
cost much_

Starbucks, one morning. She's on her way to her next class, he's on his way to work. They are both late, but reach for the same cup. She would have thought that he would have liked his coffee hot and black, he would have thought that she would order something more sugary and youthful than a French Roast with soy milk.

She gives him an odd little half smile, and he seems surprised, but nods with a softened upward curve to his once stiff upper lip. (_She seems…older._) . She seems surprised(_He seems…older._), but asks him to have a seat with her.

She asks how he has been. Have the years passed quickly, Sesshomaru?

They have not. But they have passed and I am still here.

Oh. Yes.

Silence grows, not uncomfortably, and their thoughts float like steam form their cups. Absorbing the…not-surprise, the not-longing. They both suppose that they should feel these things, but are not surprised when they do not. Suddenly, he speaks, a softer tone to his voice.

So this is where you belong, Kagome.

It is a statement, not a question. She seems surprised that he remembers her name, unsure of whether he is correct in his comment. She thinks for a moment. Another half smile.

Yes.

You should be hideous, you know. Men age better than women, after all—just because I retain my looks, does not mean that you would.

Full smile, and laughter—she is finally caught unawares. He has a sense of humor—very dry, deadpan, but it is there.

Watching her as she laughs, he gives another half smile, and stands up.

She stops laughing slowly, watches as he puts on his coat, and feels around fore the hole in her heart. When she doesn't find it, asks

Tomorrow, perhaps?

A raised eyebrow—familiar—but with his new (and old), softer eyes. Considering. Weighing.

A moment later, turns to leave. Her face shows nothing--no disappointment--though a shadow crosses the stormy seas of her eyes.

But he is turning. Looks over his shoulder.

Tomorrow, then. Good bye, Kagome.

But she smiles, because she knows, this time, it isn't.

_I stick loneliness, your lips  
And the two coins of your eyes  
Into my pockets._


	7. Touching Hands

_Genre: Emotive/Introspective  
Word count: 245  
Characters: Miroku  
Summary: The story of one man's hands. _

Hands tell stories.

Praying, holding eachother and another's. Working, playing, writing. Touching.

Warriors' hands, musicians' hands, peasants hands. Kings' hands.

His hands.

Constant reminder that all stories have endings, and his may be short, if not necessarily sweet.

Hole like the Christian God, but only in one palm, unfinished sacrifice. But it will be enough.

He feels as though he is the gateway to somewhere else: after all, where must all of the things that pass through his naked hand find themselves?

A question that he decides that he can wait to find the answer to—his time will come soon enough.

He just doesn't know when.

Therefore, he resolves to act as though it would come imminently: that day, that hour, in the next second. He loves and forgives equally, unconditionally: love, it costs him little to share, and forgiveness matters little to him, but can make such a difference to those who have confidence in their immortality. So he forgives.

He wishes she would.

Or better, that she would understand: he treats life as a joke, because the only other option is to treat it as a tragedy. He would rather enjoy himself and, frankly, can't see the point of any other approach. So he uses his hands to add to the fun of it all.

Touching.

Perhaps, one day she will understand.

She is the only thing that he takes seriously—his one tragedy in the comedy of his glaringly mortal life.


	8. Hard and Rough

_Genre: Emotive/Romance  
Word count: 154  
Characters: Inuyasha  
Summary: Sometimes, Inuyasha wants something more…_**hard**.

He knows he's in love with Kagome.

He loves her because she's all fragility and sweetness, and he feels like a real man…demon…like his father when he protects her from dangers. She is all soft and smooth edges: soft midnight black hair, soft pink lips, soft cheeks, smooth skin everywhere.

He loves her back, the was her lithe body forms against his when he carries her, when he kisses her in his dreams…

But.

Sometimes he just wants something…hard.

Something solid and bitter that would look after itself, sharp and edgy. The rough calluses that come from total independence.

Something…less painfully feminine. Maybe then, he wouldn't have to tiptoe around contact like a frightened boy.

Thinks, _I feel guilty, but…sometimes all this protecting gets on my nerves_.

He wishes that, once in a while, he could be free and passionate with his body. Hard sex, hard fighting, hard love.

Thinks, _Jakotsu could protect himself…_


End file.
